ROLE OF POLLINATORS IN SPECIES PRESERVATION, CONSERVATION, ECOSYSTEM STABILITY AND GENETIC DIVERSITY

What happens to pollination if pollinators change? Many plant species have such generalized pollination systems that many different insects can pollinate them, but the intensity or quality of pollination may be affected if pollinator species change.
The insects capable of pollinating a given plant species can be recognized as a functional group.
What happens to plants if pollination changes? Often, the initial changes of genetic structure or seed quality in a population are inconspicuous, and even if sexual reproduction fails altogether long-lived individuals and their vegetative progeny remain for many years.
Analysis of age-state spectra of populations may help to identify recruitment failure.
What happens to pollinators if plants change? The array of plant species on which a pollinator species can forage constitutes its functional group of forage plants.
Social bee colonies, with their long foraging season, need a seasonal sequence of forage plant species.
Conservation or management of one species of crop or wild flower may require management of members of its functional group of pollinators, and their management may require several members of their functional group of forage plants.
Management of pollination systems requires an approach at the habitat or landscape level, rather than the single species level.

VII International Symposium on Pollination

Sarah A. Corbet

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1997.437.23